Pinterest's Growth Comes Back to Earth

Data through the 18th reveals that Pinterest's growth has started to slow in March. A four week moving average of unique users showed that growth slowed from an 85% rate between mid-January and mid-February, to an 18% rate between mid-February and mid-March. Based on the latest data, Comscore projects that Pinterest will grow its total unique users in March to just over 20 million. That's just a roughly 12 percent month-over-month increase after posting a 50 percent increase in February. This data comes as Pinterest is now telling users to only "pin" content they create or have permission to use, limiting the scope of images users are supposed to share.

YouTube To Introduce New Channel Sponsorship Ad Model

YouTube is testing out different strategies to help generate revenue for the site. The latest strategy sees the company reportedly trying out a new ad model to support its numerous video channels. Adweek reported that the estimated value for the sponsorship – which takes into account display, overlay and pre-roll – would amount to $4 million to $6 million annually, depending on the channel. From this initiative, YouTube hopes to encourage more people and production companies to start making professional and original content for the site.

Hubbub Turns Your Social Activities into Sound

Hubbub is a new social network that lets you log in using Facebook or Twitter and listen to what your friends, celebrities, and whomever else you're interested in, are talking about on those and other social networks. Essentially, Hubbub enables people to follow their friends' activities when it's more convenient to listen than to browse the Web (e.g. driving, jogging, etc.). The startup asserts that talking and listening is a natural form of human interaction, but that sound has "always been out of bounds" for online social networks. That statement might not be technically true; however, trying to bridge those two makes for an interesting idea.

Social Media Site Yammer Popular Among Australian Businesses

Yammer is being embraced by thousands of Australian businesses as a vital communication tool. The dedicated business networking site brought its global roadshow to Australia for the first time this week to build on its rapidly-expanding base. Australia is Yammer's fifth fastest growing country, with 250,000 individual users across 15,000 organizations including Deloitte, National Australia Bank and Westfield. The company is expanding its Australian operations in response, opening an office in Sydney to join the Melbourne headquarters and increasing the number of employees from eight to between 20 and 24 by the end of the year.